Almighty Aqua Fest Sank Fast
Austin's signature annual event lost $2 million in four years ('90-'93)
During the first couple years of South by Southwest, if you were in a bar and said that “one day this is going to be bigger than Aqua Fest,” you would’ve been cut off. That was as overserved a prognostication as saying that one day rooms at the San Jose Motel would top $100 a night. Can I call you a cab, sir?
During its ‘80s heyday, Aqua Fest was the biggest annual music event in town by far. It was ACL Fest for families on a budget. Every August it would squat on the shores of Town Lake like Godzilla in a white sailor suit, swatting at local club business, sending big growls of sound up the hills of South Austin, overloading the streets with cars parked like magnets. In its biggest year, 1985, Aqua Fest attracted 252,000 during a nine-day run. Most club owners would schedule their vacations to coincide with “Aqua Pest,” with Liberty Lunch open only the night of the fireworks because they had the best view.
When Austin Aqua Festival began in 1962, water was the star, as the Chamber of Commerce created the event to celebrate the recent completion of Longhorn Dam, and also to counter the stereotype of Texas as a scorched prairie of cattle drives and oil rigs. It was held at Fiesta Gardens’ Festival Beach, where thousands would stake their square of the shore to watch speedboats roar down Town Lake and bikini-clad water-skiers waved as they sliced the water. There were kiddie fishing derbies, Boy Scout canoe races, and the unveiling of the Aqua Fest Queen and her two Princesses.
In the evenings, couples two-stepped on a concrete dancefloor to local country bands, or they danced the polka on “Czech Night,” one of several ethnic heritage nights. The neighborhood came out on “Noche Mexicana,” but it took the 1964 passing of the Civil Rights Act before “Soul Night” came to be.
Aqua Fest got the whole city involved, with Bergstrom AFB opening up to civilians for its AeroFest sky ballet and Rod Kennedy presenting the Festival Teen Hop at Municipal Auditorium, with such local bands as Babycakes, Emeralds, Sweetarts, Lavender Hill Express and the Wig battling the best from San Antonio and Corpus.
The nationally-significant boat drag races were the biggest draw, with 30,000 rubber-neckers crowding Festival Beach (not a beach). But since speedboats sound like lawn mowers on the porch, the predominantly-Latino neighborhood protested hard. The Brown Berets stepped in, and the controversy was covered in the Statesman for a year before Mayor Carole McClelland cast the deciding vote to ban speedboats in 1978. That year Aqua Fest moved to the more spacious Auditorium Shores and live music became the big attraction.
It was an event where you could bring the whole family for under $20. The atmosphere was similar to that of a state fair, with folks gnawing turkey legs under a Ferris wheel, while someone’s wailing “Polk Salad Annie” in the distance. It was a very country-western scene until the ‘80s.
The Fest’s best years, musically, were ‘86- ‘90 when attorney Cindi Lazzari and Eric Johnson’s manager Joe Priestnitz booked it. The married music industry veterans knew how to cherrypick what was available to appease a wide audience, plus they had tight local connections. They put Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan back together in 1987. They booked a magnificent performance by Roy Orbison in 1988, just four months before he passed away. They brought the fucking Ramones and Little Richard to the dustbowl of Aqua Fest in 1990. But 1989 was untoppable, with a lineup that included George Jones, Dwight Yoakam, NRBQ, Ray Price, the Reivers, Clint Black, Guadalcanal Diary, Patty Loveless and Chuck Berry. For $8 a night.
Chuck Berry was a trip. After Lazzari sent the rock pioneer half the fee as a deposit, she never heard back from him. Phone calls and letters unreturned. This went on for a couple months, and Lazzari was stressed. Still not hearing from Berry or his people the afternoon of the show, she told the hired backup band to be ready to fill in. “Thirty minutes before he was scheduled to go on, I got a call from parking lot security that Chuck Berry was there and not on the list,” recalled Lazzari. "Well, send him in!" she exclaimed. Chuck popped the trunk and carried his own amp and guitar to the stage. Once the cash balance was in his pocket, Berry started right into one of his hits at exactly the advertised starting time.
French Smith, who put on all those great T-Bird Riverfest shows at Auditorium Shores, was the next Aqua Fest booker, but when his contract wasn’t renewed, he ran a competing festival on Sixth Street in ‘93. Only 44,000 came through the turnstiles that year, as Aquafest lost $600,000. The cash reserve the event had spent 30 years accumulating- $2 million- was gone in four years.
Greed and cluelessness eventually led to Aqua Fest’s demise. In 1988, the nine-member staff, lead by Fest president Newt Youngblood, decided to give themselves nice salaries (Youngblood's was $130,000 a year) to run the whole show. This didn’t sit well with the “Commodores,” the higher-ranked volunteers, many of whom had worked on Aqua Fest for more than 20 years.
Since the staff's bonus incentives were tied to net profits, they decided to up the ante, getting bigger names and charging more money for admission. But when the cost went up, as high as $12 per night, the attendance plummeted. Expensive acts like Kenny Loggins, Three Dog Night and Damn Yankees lost money. As they should have.
Aqua Fest used to hit paydirt by booking bands months before they broke out, like George Strait in 1981 and Billy Joe Cyrus in ‘92. They paid Cyrus $7,500 and drew 17,000. The same year Dolly got $80,000 and drew only 7,000. That’s show biz.
I stopped going to Aqua Fest when the decibel limits were ridiculously low- 85 dB until 10 p.m. and 80 dB after. That’s less than Fran Drescher’s laugh. Most concerts are at about 100 dB, but since the sound at Auditorium Shores carried up South First Street to Ben White, neighbors had been complaining. Nine consecutive nights is a long time to hear what sounds like a band practicing across the street.
In 1997, both Pushmonkey and Jason and the Scorchers were shut down mid-set for excessive volume. At the Scorchers' show, the stoppage was ridiculous because the band barely sounded plugged in. Perhaps it was the crowd's shouts of ``Turn it up!'' that set off the violation. Sound limits neutered, and eventually killed Aqua Fest in’98. That’s fine. It was never cool, just something to do if you lived in Austin.